A vote to elect a new chairman of the standing parliamentary commission overseeing the police general inspectorate (GIBS) will have to be repeated, the speaker of the lower house Radek Vondráček made clear on Wednesday, citing “confusion” in a second secret vote on Tuesday.

The Communist Party’s nominee Zdeněk Ondráček was originally thought to have been elected before a technical issue came to light, casting the result of the vote in doubt.

His election, seen as highly controversial because of Mr Ondráček’s role as a communist-era police officer who took part in a clampdown on student demonstrators in 1989, prompted dozens of people to protest in front of Parliament on Tuesday evening before the announcement was made.

A third attempt to elect the nominee as chairman will take place in mid-January.